Kilchoman

The bottling of the first ten-year-old whisky is a big milestone in the life of any distillery.

A tiny, farm-run endeavour, Kilchoman have been punching well above their weight since they entered the whisky market with consistently excellent whisky from a very young age. I’m a big fan of their 100% Islay bottlings (which are only about 5 years old when bottled).

Nose: Jamaican Ginger cake but without the heavy molasses – more like golden syrup and brown sugar. A chalky, sooty, old stove quality around the edges of the sweetness. There’s a fragrant starchiness, too, like pilau rice. With water it gets waxy and slightly soapy.

Palate: Very thick and buttery, with sweet vanilla, lemon sherbet, and then a freight-train of peat and barrel spice: chilli peppers, tingly clove, black pepper. Water calms the spices and reveals cardamom, heather honey, boiled sweets, and some light floral camomile notes.

Finish: Cashew nuts, more cloves, and a lip-smacking ashy quality akin to the dying embers of a cigar.

This is definitely more rounded and well-integrated than its younger siblings.

The character of the spirit shines through and dominates both the nose and the palate, forcing the influence from the cask to take a back seat. Those floral, peaty flavours works incredibly well together and I hope this means we’ll see a 10-year-old at 46% become part of the core line-up.

Another airport treat here. I picked this up ages ago and decided to open it for World Whisky Day.

It took a little while to open up but after nearly a week I’m getting a ton more character coming through.

Nose: Oceanic and salty with a vegetal feel. Coltsfoot rock, sultanas, oily espresso and waxed leather. There’s a dusty earthiness with grist and dried herbs. With time, ready salted crisps and a whiff of tequila.

Palate: Luscious mouthfeel with a great balance of sweet and savoury. Peaty and rather Ardbeglike with the character of the smoke coming through as flavours of iodine and dark tar amid sweet notes of treacle, roasted hazelnuts, and burnt coffee.

Finish: Long and dry with bitter dark chocolate, sawdust, white pepper, and a wisp of earthy peat smoke.

This is a terrific whisky. Peaty, tasty, but subtle and evolving plenty in the glass over time.

Elements of the palate remind me of 70’s Ardbeg with its restraint and balance. I respect that’s very high praise for a whisky that’s only spent four years in wood but it turns out that you can get a very high quality distillate when you take the small batch farmyard approach and do things slowly and properly.

I picked this up for under £50 in Manchester Airport. It’s going for more than that online (a lot more in some cases). Keep an eye out for it if you fly via/to the UK, it’s well worth the RRP.

Some people aren’t a fan of young peaty whisky but I think Kilchoman are doing extraordinarily well with the stock they have (founded in 2005, it’ll be a while before we see older releases). Mind you, young peaty malts aren’t to everyone’s taste I suppose (though I bloody love them!).

At around £50 per bottle, it’s not cheap. But given this is uncoloured and non chill filtered Islay from a tiny farm that malts and peats their own barley on site, I’d be happy to part with my cash to support their endeavours.

Here’s the fifth dram from the Manchester Whisky Club’s tasting with Kilchoman, the Port Cask. This was released last year and sold out very quickly indeed. The original release was watered to 55%, but we’re very luck to be trying an original cask sample at 59%!

The distillery started with 20 fresh 1st-fill port casks back in 2011 and filled them with spirit straight away to capture the flavour. At 3 years old they decided to release it because the port was having such a strong influence on the whisky. Any longer and it’d have looked like Ribena!

The colour on this is amazing – you almost never see a whisky of this hue. After time in sherry it darkens but almost never to this pinky/reddish colour.

It’s an interesting dram, for sure, but it’s quite a departure from what you’d expect from a whisky. The port influence has given it a lot of soft-fruit notes which are pleasant and refreshing but they’re kind of fighting against the peatiness of the whisky.

Here’s the third dram from the Manchester Whisky Club’s tasting with Kilchoman, the Loch Gorm 2015. This one’s so new it’s not even on WhiskyBase yet! Released on Monday 23rd, we’re some of the first people to taste it.

I really liked this a lot more than I expected to. The other Loch Gorm releases I’ve tried have been a little bit boring. This one’s a different beast altogether, with some great savoury sherry notes coming through.

Using Hogsheads as well as Butts has made a difference to the wood contact during those five years maturing. I think I may have to nab a bottle of this…